My response to Hanno Ehses’s article from 1987 (p.15 from the Rhetoric pdf). He wishes to ‘encourage reassessment and serious discussion of rhetoric as a potential platform for the study and practice of graphic design’.

Ehses, similarly to Bonsiepe, relates the origins of rhetoric back to ancient Greece, quoting Aristotle and his observation that all people were involved with rhetoric. To understand why some examples of communication are more effective we must ‘discover the art behind persuasion’. However the way Ehses describes rhetoric language, as a tool that is ‘manipulated to achieve desired ends’ and its negative connotations of ‘fraud’ and ‘deceit’ still continues into the modern preconceptions of advertising, supporting Bonsiepe’s article. He continues to make historic references of prejudice against rhetoric, citing Plato who condemned language, and Renaissance humanists and its link with high arts as well as ‘oral and written discourse’. Just how strong is this sense to rhetoric and its modern form of marketing/advertising now?

Again rhetoric was not seen positively in the 1500s, when rhetoric was a separate ‘discipline’ to logic, ‘logic was scientific and exact; rhetoric was peripheral and decorative’. It was seen as an additional attachment, a “slap on” piece of clothing that covers logic and ‘truth’. These thoughts, despite its long history, it is only up til the last thirty years when people began to make rhetoric ‘respectable again, to free it from the prejudice that regards it as a cunning and morally questionable technique’. What changed? Perhaps the realisation that design and rhetoric cannot be separated, yet design is not always deceitful in intentions.

Within this article, Ehses does make reference to Bonsiepe’s Visual/Verbal Rhetoric, who in turn was inspired by Roland Barthes’s essay (one of the forefront theologists of rhetoric). He summarises that rhetoric and modern communication relies on understanding the culture of society, that it is ‘a matter of relationships’ where one that connects with ‘the habits and expectations’ of the target audience is a successful one. He also mentions the element of surprise and wit/emotional impact, is this where advertisers/designers prove that rhetoric does indeed have logic and not fraudulent?

There is a huge emphasis to shift the perception of using rhetoric, Ehses ends on how this tool is now used for ‘functional aesthetic/ethical imperative’ rather than just a gloss/imitation on design. Since this article was written in 1987, it would be interesting to note the attitude of designers twenty years later the stigma of using rhetoric, or if they were even aware of its history.

ok, so, old rhetoric = the art of convincing through powerful, emotional words, new rhetoric = the art of convincing through personable, relatable approaches. Both are out to gain something but the last approach is gentle and more believable and more trusting. Especially when it is possibly the cause of the new branding campaigns to build long term relationships with people through events and experiences.

What changed? That’s difficult. All these references have applied rhetoric to the application of design or marketing or advertisement. To me, rhetoric seems to be the description of what comes out of a human’s body language and verbal/ written language which requires their own opinion or personality behind it. It is unavoidable, natural.

I know I keep referencing screen and ‘new technologies’ but maybe there is something to the opening up of platforms, and the lack of filters your input (whatever object or medium) has to go through to be made available to everyone, that now makes visual communication very much about face time and the art of the average joe. It no longer has to involve the authorities, and peer group language (amongst equals) is seen and recognised a lot more. Therefore, the authorities have to adopt this new approach of dropping it’s status and conversing with the unwashed. Such, again, is the power of web 2.0 (I reckon maybe). Maybe?

As Ehses’ article was written in the 80’s, this probably is a mute point when directly referencing that article, but maybe still has a relevance anyways???

Your definition of rhetoric is intriguing and personable, it makes rhetoric sound less like a communicative tool and more, as you put it, ‘natural’. Maybe when persuasion is used face-to-face it more believable as the receptor can interact/challenge the persuasion, but when used as a marketing tool, having an opinion forced upon (mentioned in Nick Bell’s article) is not always well received. As you say, it’s about the relationships, events and experience that builds consumer trust, leading to a higher success rate of persuasion.

With this face-time rhetoric increasing in marketing tactics, the line between brands being your friend and brands being invasive is getting thinner. Will there be a time when consumers tire of brands that are constant interacting with them? Advertising is becoming even more difficult to avoid!